Dear Soccer Coach,
 
In 1994 – 1995, I had the pleasure of living in Holland to play soccer and attend a 4 month coaching course with the KNVB (Royal Dutch SoccerAssociation). 

During that time, I met Frans Hoek who was an assistant coach specializing
in Goal keeping for Ajax Amsterdam for both the Professional Team and all of
the Youth.
 
That year om 94-95, Ajax not only won the Champions League, Dutch Cup, Dutch
League, World Club Cup and the  European Super Cup, but they did it with the
players from their own youth development.
 
In 1995, My brothers and I started to bring Frans Hoek and other Ajax/Dutch
coaches to the U.S. and continued to visit Holland and other European
countries to study the beautiful game.
 
In 1997, Frans Hoek moved to FC Barcelona and stayed for 6 years. We then
started to visit Spain and learn how they do it in Spain and watch the Dutch
(Van Gaal, Van der Lem, Koeman and Hoek) help structure the youth of FC
Barcelona. 
 
In fact many players who Frans coached in the youth – Valdes, Puyol,
Iniesta, Xavi, Busquets, Pique, Bojan, Pedro and more, are now in the World
Champion FC Barcelona team of today
 
Because of Frans Hoek, we were able to get a inside look into both Ajax and
FC Barcleona.  In 2001, I convinced Frans to help me organize the 1st Annual
European Coaches Education Tour.
 
Since then, Frans and I have organized 8 Tours and visited Holland, Belgium,
Germany, Spain, England, Italy, and Greece.
 
During these tours we had lectures, training sessions and watched games at
all levels at famous clubs such as :
 
Ajax Amsterdam, PSV Eindhoeven, AZ Alkmaar,  Feynoord
Schalke 04, Dortmund
Club Brugge
Chelsea FC, Tottenham FC
AEK Athens
FC Barcelona, Espanyol
 
and too many smaller professional and amateur clubs to list.
 
In the past 2 years, we have focused more on staying in Holland and taking
the coaches education part of the tour to the next level by adding
assignments for the U.S. coaches and having Dutch coaches attend games and
training sessions with us.
 
Through our travels, we have found that the KNVB and Dutch Clubs are the
most structured in coaching and the development of players.
 
This is the main reason that a country of only 16 million inhabitants can
produce so many World Class players who play at the World Top Clubs.
 
Frans and I are again excited to organized the 9th Annual Coaches Education
Tour.  We hope you can attend and see the “inside look” into several Dutch
Clubs.
 
If you have any questions, please feel free to e-mail me at
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Yours in Soccer,
Andrew Ziemer